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Scenario One:A co-worker has been late to work several times and
is in danger of
disciplinary action. You are aware that she is struggling with
anxiety but
fears ridicule based on some staff comments about clients who
struggle to
come to appointments on time. She comes to you one morning upset
by
the harsh look she got from the office manager when she was 5
minutes
late. She says “Can you believe what a micro-manager she
is?!”
Scenario Two:A staff person is showing signs of substance abuse.
His work performance
is slipping but prior to this he has been an excellent employee.
As the head
nurse, you are this person’s manager and have growing
frustration with
his lowered engagement with patients, families and colleagues.
He comes
to you to tell you that yesterday he failed to check a patient’s
wristband
and provided the wrong medication. He reports that the patient
did not
experience any adverse effects and he did everything after that
to follow
hospital policies when a medication error occurs. He says that
he is coming
to you just to be sure you knew and to verify that he did
everything needed
to follow-up.
Scenario Three:You work at a pediatric oncology clinic and the
parent of one of your clients
has shared with you that she has lost her job along with her
family’s health
insurance and will likely be withdrawing her child from care
because she
can no longer afford to pay for treatment. While the child’s
health has
progressed, additional treatment would make long-term remission
more
likely. The mother is very upset.
Scenario Four:You are a case manager at a community mental
health center and are
having lunch with a co-worker. She begins to express her
frustrations about
being assigned a new client, explaining how she already doesn’t
have
enough time in her day to provide care for her current clients.
She proceeds
to divulge the difficulties she is having handling the stress of
the work and
her feelings of hopelessness in being able to help her
clients.
Compassionate Action Steps – Scenarios for Discussion (Combined
from works of Monica Worline, Awakening Compassion at Work, 2017
and Beth Lown, The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare,
2014)
Instructions: Working in pairs, take one scenario and discuss
your answers to the questions on the following page.
Advancing Adult Compassion and Resilience: A Toolkit for Health
Care Agencies | Section 1 | Compassion in Action
Compassion in Action Section 1
1
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Compassionate Action Steps – Scenarios for Discussion
(continued)
Questions
1. Notice – Be present in the moment and able to recognize signs
of distress.
a) What times or situations in your day are you most likely to
have things get in the way of you being present?
b) Consider the scenario as happening in such a time. What can
you do to be more present in these times?
2. Self-check - Be aware of your inital feelings (What am I
connecting to from my past?) and thoughts about this
person or situation. Appraisals are natural and dependent on
your frame of reference from your experience and
“training” and often inaccurate or incomplete.
a) What emotions arise for you in relation to this scenario?
b) What might your initial judgments be? What might your “old
tapes” play back to you?
3. Seek to understand – Suspend appraisals. Listen with
curiosity to understand the concerns/distress from the
other’s perspective. Listen for feelings and any insights or
strengths that the person shares.
a) How might you invite the person to share information with
you? What strategies do you use to encourage
them to open up with you?
b) What are three possible insights or strengths you might hear
if you listen long enough?
4. Cultivate empathy – Develop genuine concern based on the
feelings you have come to understand and can relate
to your own experience of such feelings. This leads to a growing
desire and intention to help. Keep listening for
understanding if empathy seems out of reach.
a) What situations do you find most difficult for you to tap
into your genuine empathy? What feelings might you be
able to relate to even if you cannot relate to the
situation?
5. Discern best action – Work with the person to figure out what
would be helpful to them rather than what you
think would be helpful or was helpful to you in past, similar
circumstances.
a) Compare your ideas for what you think the person “should” do
with those of your partner. Note differences
and the problems that might arise if your solutions were applied
to your partner. Discuss how you might guide the
person to their own solutions. Review Moving from Establishing
Empathy to Engaging the Person in Discerning Best Action handout
for additional ideas.
6. Take action – Be aware that intention alone is not
compassionate action.
a.) What typically gets in your way of taking compassionate
action?
b) What can you do to minimize those barriers?
Advancing Adult Compassion and Resilience: A Toolkit for Health
Care Agencies | Section 1 | Compassion in Action
Compassion in Action Section 1
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https://compassionresiliencetoolkit.org//media/Healthcare_Section1_MovingfromEstablishingEmpathy.pdfhttps://compassionresiliencetoolkit.org//media/Healthcare_Section1_MovingfromEstablishingEmpathy.pdf
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Advancing Adult Compassion and Resilience: A Toolkit for Health
Care Agencies | Section 1 | Compassion in Action
Compassion in Action Section 1
Moving from Establishing Empathy to Engaging the Person in
Discerning Best Action
1. Focus on the moment and what’s manageable:
a) “What seems like the next best step for you to do?”
b) “What feels doable right now?”
c) “How can I/we be helpful to you, right now?”
2. Listen for and reconnect them to their strengths to open
their minds to solutions:
a) “I heard your frustration and anger clearly. I also got a
glimpse of your strength. You seem to have some ideas
about what you’d like to do about this.”
b) “When you can’t see your own strengths, who do you trust to
help you to see them?”
3. Focus on the recent past, when the challenge was not a
barrier for them:
a) “I noticed recently that you were able to ____ (feel or act
in a certain way). What was different about that time?”
b) “Sounds like this has come up for you in the past. Is there
anything about how you dealt with it then that would
be helpful to remember now?”
c) “When you felt this in the past, what was one of your
strengths that allowed you to deal with it?”
4. Change perspective and focus on desire to change:
a) “What do you see as the benefits of dealing with this
challenge?” “What might be the ramifications if you do not?”
b) “If you could operate with a clear head and light heart right
now, what do you imagine you would do?”
5. Recognize when the person feels stuck and assist them to
think about what it would take to become
unstuck: (If you want to offer suggestions, be sure to ask for
permission first.)
a) “You seem stuck right now. Do you need some time before you
can think about next steps?”
b) “Who is ‘on your team’ that you trust to offer
suggestions?
c) “You seem a bit stuck when it comes to ideas for what to do
next. Would you like me to offer some options to get
your own ideas flowing?”
d) “We both have seen others (other organizations) face similar
challenges, would it be helpful to talk about what
we remember worked for them?”
6. Change expectations > change attitude:
a) “I/we need you to ____ because of ____; and I also realize
that sometimes things get in the way of meeting
expectations. When you’re unable to ____, I need you to let me
know as soon as possible so we can work to
reduce the impact.”
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